Posted
by
EditorDavid
on Saturday April 22, 2017 @11:34AM
from the genetic-re-engineering dept.

Long-time reader randomErr quotes Gizmodo:
It's a nightmare scenario straight out of a primetime drama: a child-seeking couple visits a fertility clinic to try their luck with in-vitro fertilization, only to wind up accidentally impregnated by the wrong sperm. In a fascinating legal case out of Singapore, the country's Supreme Court ruled that this situation doesn't just constitute medical malpractice. The fertility clinic, the court recently ruled, must pay the parents 30% of upkeep costs for the child for a loss of 'genetic affinity.' In other words, the clinic must pay the parents' child support not only because they made a terrible medical mistake, but because the child didn't wind up with the right genes...

"It's suggesting that the child itself has something wrong with it, genetically, and that it has monetary value attached to it," Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, told Gizmodo. "They attached damages to the genetic makeup of the child, rather than the mistake. That's the part that makes it uncomfortable. This can take you in all sort of fucked up directions."

He's not just "assfucking their country", he's assfucking THEM while moaning constantly about how great they are together & how wonderful life will be if he can keep doing this as much as he wants. And their response is "well, I'd never let Obama do this to me but okay"

Actually research indicate there aren't, at least not after birth control, legalized abortion and the awareness of DNA tests. Current estimates are 1-3% of the population. The excessively high numbers you get quoted from time to time are because they've self-selected groups where the paternity is in doubt, in these low confidence selections it's 10-30%.

It's been quite a while since I was in high school, but I remember a much higher percentage of bastards than that.

Asshats have a much bigger chance of being raised by asshats, nature vs nurture and all that. Being a bastard is just one of those "kick where it hurts" words like that you're fat, have freckles, wear glasses, wrong skin color, have a funny dialect or speech impediment, it's f-f-f-f-f-unny you see. I've been on the receiving end of a lot of teasing but ultimately I've understood it's all about some people's need to establish a pecking order. And I've kicked downwards where maybe I shouldn't, but it felt goo

The legal system for child support came about because plenty of "real fathers" were only too willing to abandon their families when the going got rough or a more winsome piece of ass drifted on by.There aren't many mothers who haven't feared being own their own raising the kids, regardless of who the father was.Yup, there are plenty of sluts out there with low morals but they're outnumbered by the dicks, not the cucks.

The legal system for child support came about because plenty of "real fathers" were only too willing to abandon their families when the going got rough or a more winsome piece of ass drifted on by.

What revisionist twaddle. Child support after a divorce came about because originally fathers kept the children and got both the benefits of custody and the responsibility to support them. Then we decided that children belong with their mothers, but financial responsibility should stay with the fathers.

The 'deadbeat dad' narrative came about as a way to defend this clearly unfair system, and the fact the fathers (quite reasonably) feel more responsible for children that they are allowed to be the fathers

"This financial dependency theme recurred almost in every children support case decided by the courts of America during the nineteenth century, primarily because newly divorced American mothers in nineteenth-century were almost always forced to live in poverty.

Even families that were well off financially before the divorce found that after the divorce, the father almost always profited and the mother almost always became impoverished. This occurred because the men were suddenly free from the expenses of the family, whereas the women were forced to take on the financial burden of raising the children.

In addition, if the mother did attempt to find a job for herself, she generally earned less than what a man would make in the same field. "

This occurred because the men were suddenly free from the expenses of the family, whereas the women were forced to take on the financial burden of raising the children.

Exactly, this is after men no longer had default custody of the children after a divorce and people were trying to put financial responsibility back on his shoulders. I'm sorry if my extremely brief overview missed some of the twists and turns between the old common-law system and the one we have today.

But how is this a defense of ' "real fathers" were only too willing to abandon their families'? The fact you quoted was true no matter who initiated the divorce or for what reason.

And again, you seem to be suggesting that the bad behavior of those men justified the unfairness to all men. I'm suggesting that the number of 'dad abandons family on a whim' phenomena was blown out of proportion by the unfortunate victims of those cases, bigots, and people who saw a political advantage to be gained, and that even if it was true it wouldn't justify a wholesale shift in legal responsibility.

the father almost always profited and the mother almost always became impoverished

And the mother almost always got to raise the children and the father did not. I agree that both were unfair, but at least they weren't both unfair in the same direction, as they are tending toward now.

Without some clear distancing language (e.g. the legislature thought that...) one can't tell the difference between a mere statement of fact and an endorsement - English is funny that way. That's why I kept saying 'you seem to be suggesting' - I want you to make your position clearer.

I stated how it came about, to the best of my knowledge.

And I'm trying to point out that men leaving their wives and children on a whim was never a large fraction of divorces, but it did make a good boogyman. Or to use your terminology, there are probably more sluts than dicks (or m

If we're going to be a pro choice nation, let's go all the way. How much of a fucking double standard is it that a mother can "choose" keep a child or not, but a father gets forced to support a child for 18 years. If pro choice supporters don't want to be flaming hypocrites, they need to fight for the end of child support.

The situation's not symmetrical, because men can make women pregnant, but women can't make men pregnant.

Partly, I suspect that being attacked would ruin the mood for me, thus rendering the exercise futile.

Except that penises don't work that way. One of the main reason that men who are raped by men don't report is because they're confused or embarrassed because they got an erection or even ejaculated. I mean, if you could just turn it off with willpower, why would premature ejaculation ever be a thing? Why would teenagers have to carry things in front of themselves on occasion?

But okay, just because I find it difficult to imagine doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

And we're better off with people who disagree but have open minds and are willing to listen than with people who all mindlessly agree.

Actually, you will find out that underage fathers are not required to pay child support unless they want custody. Then they will be paying after they hi their majority.

So you're correcting me, but then say "they will be paying", which is exactly what I said, so... you agree? What? Or are you saying that if they don't want custody they don't pay (which is completely incorrect)?

Same with unconscious. That's called rape, you know.

If he's wasn't penetrated it's not rape in the US, nor in the UK. And paternity is strict liability - even if the woman was convicted of sexual assault that wouldn't be good enough. So it might be technically possible to avoid liability, but I haven't come across a case like that, ever, while on the

If I remember that study correctly, it was based on gene testing and only done when people were suspicious. So in 4/5 cases where people were suspicious, it turned out to be a false alarm. It seemes very reasonable to suggest that if you are not suspicious, then the odds are higher that the child is your own.

Sometimes a woman will trick a man into raising another man's child. It is more common than you think.

I suggest routine DNA testing after birth to make sure the hospital didn't swap someone else's baby for yours.Maybe another parent made an under-the-table deal with some random nurse to secretly swap the wristbands so they could get the kid they wanted.

Sometimes a woman will trick a man into raising another man's child. It is more common than you think.

I used to do something similar when I was delivering Pizzas for a living. Whenever one of my girlfriends had a baby, I would drop off the baby instead of the pizza and told them it was theirs. Later the court ordered me to pay 30% of the child's upkeep. Not a total win for me, but I feel like I saved 70% on the cost of raising the kid.

The visectomy reminds me of my buddy. Living with his GF, she comes home "I'm pregnant!" All happy happy joy joy. He starts hauling her stuff to the curb. She is furious calling him deadbeat etc. He goes "I got snipped @18". All she said was "o". And helped carry the rest of her stuff out.

"It's suggesting that the child itself has something wrong with it, genetically, and that it has monetary value attached to it," Todd Kuiken, a senior research scholar with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, told Gizmodo.

That's a lot of shit. It's suggesting that people didn't receive what they paid for, and should receive recompense on that basis. It doesn't mean that the child is bad or wrong. It means the clinic is bad and wrong.

If you think giving a couple the wrong genetic material is OK, then why shouldn't you be responsible for footing the bill if someone else knocks up your wife? This is basically clinical cuckoldry. That's not what they paid for.

You didn't even read to the end of the summary, it seems. The problem is they are not suing over the mistake made by the clinic, but that the child has the wrong genes. Suing the clinic over medical malpractice is fine, but the couple has sued for a completely different formulation of the problem.

The couple paid to have the Chinese mother's egg fertilized with the German father's sperm in vitro and then implanted in the mother, where it was to gestate and be born as their child, of their genes. Instead, the lab used an Indian man's sperm. The laboratory cuckolded the father and gave him a child that does not look like him. It has different genes and a darker skin tone than either parent. It will always look different from the father, and both the father and child, as well as everyone else who meets them, will know instantly that the mother gave birth to a child belonging to a man other than her husband.

That clinic needs to be punished, and other fertility clinics ought to be worried at how easy it could be for that mistake to destroy patients' confidence in the clinics. Why would you go to a fertility clinic now, when you know what they could do to your family? The fertility clinics need to band together and regulate themselves heavily in order to bolster confidence that they are not cuckolding factories.

It's an even bigger cluster-fuck than that. What about the Indian man's parental access rights? The child is his. I don't know the legal situation in Singapore, but when stuff like this has happened in the UK there had to be an adoption by the husband of the mother, and a legal request to change the father's name on the birth certificate.

Also, the Indian man's wife/girlfriend has been made a cuckquean. Seems like they would have some standing to sue too.

>"The kid does have the wrong genes. They wanted their kid, they got somebody else's kid. It fucking matters!"

I will certainly say that in many ways it should not matter. It is their kid, just not their offspring. Semantics aside, one can provide the exact same love and joy for a child, regardless of genetics. Look at sperm/egg donors, adoption, even pet lovers- doesn't even have to be the same species:)

The only reason it might really matter is later when dealing with healthcare and hereditary diseas

The father "propagating his like" and all that does matter in some cultures though. And it's not just a matter of shame, which can be considerable, for the parents. Bastardy can carry a stigma for the child as well that may even persist into adulthood.

I'm not endorsing such beliefs, mind you. Nor am I accusing these parents of holding them. Hell, I neither have nor want kids, for that matter. But the cultural attitudes I described do exist in the world. And they can cause significant problems for the child beyond the, not at all insignificant, medical questions that may arise from unknown parentage.

I will certainly say that in many ways it should not matter. It is their kid, just not their offspring.

NO. This is for THEM to decide based on their values. Presumably if the parents would be satisfied with a kid ofdifferent genes, they COULD have just adopted without going through this procedure. If the parents think it matters, then it matters. And if they believe the child was not theirs then it's not theirs. In going through this procedure they likely had specific goals in mind.The choice t

The specific primary reason I wanted children was to pass my genes on. This is an extremely deep, natural instinct to most people. I'd never in a million years want to invest a lifetime of resources (financial, time etc.) parenting and supporting some other man's child, to further his genetics - whether the clinic made the mistake or my partner cheated - that is not the deal. The deal is, my genetic offspring in exchange for my parenting resources. If I was this poor German father I would be trying to pay 0

They were prepared to be parents and take the financial and emotional responsibility

Only for the kid being produced as a result of the procedure performed As the procedure was explained to them.(Including all the conditions: Such as, the genes of the kid will come from the Mother and Father doing the procedure.)

The kid does have the wrong genes. They wanted their kid, they got somebody else's kid. It fucking matters!

More-or-less everyone understands this. And more-or-less everyone throughout history would understand this.

The people claiming this is "weird" or "fucked up" are either strange themselves, or they're pretending. Either way, they're pushing a moral or ethical idea that contradicts nature. They're going to need a better sales pitch.

The people claiming this is "weird" or "fucked up" are either strange themselves, or they're pretending. Either way, they're pushing a moral or ethical idea that contradicts nature

Yeah; to the guy's saying it "shouldn't matter" to the father whether the child has his genes, I say, let me have sexual access to your wife and impregnate her and you pay the child-rearing costs, I'm sure they won't mind as it "shouldn't matter".

The clinic is responsible for child support, in the same way a guy would be responsible for child support if he impregnated a woman by accident

It is an even worse situation, if the kid has neither the man's genes nor the woman's genes.If a man accidentally impregnates a woman, the woman will still have to pay a portion of the child support (Unless it were Rape),but in this case, NEITHER parent is genetically related to the kid, so the Clinic's level of child support should be 100% of the costsof suppo

You are absolutely right, it does fucking matter. It matters that this kid is now going to be raised by people who despise them

Their action against the clinic does not mean they personally despise the kid.After they get their payout, they have the choice, if they want to stick with raising the other person's kid that they got,and very much loving their kid as a cashcow.... COUGH. Or they might pursue their dream and go through the processagain (Probably with a different clinic), and then raise two

The problem is they are not suing over the mistake made by the clinic, but that the child has the wrong genes.

The kid having the wrong genes is the direct fruit of the clinic's malpractice. It's no different than a baby being dropped on its head by the doctor. You don't sue ONLY for the mistake, you sue for the consequences of the mistake. Two parents decide to merge their DNA and make a baby. They do so knowing their, and their families' histories. The clinic chooses to negligently upend that planning with an unknown set of consequences - and robbing the parents of having allowed the father to contribute his traits to the child they've chosen to make. The ramifications are numerous, both emotionally and quite possibly medically, intellectually, etc., for the child. You can't separate the negligence from the life-long consequences.

Most countries are unlike the US in that they sharply limit liability for medical malpractice. This couple probably could not have won ongoing damages solely for malpractice. After all, they didn't sign up to raise a child that is biologically parented by some stranger -- but because of the clinic's mistake, they are now on the hook to do exactly that.

Not sure which countries you are talking about: in most European countries I know medical malpractice is always open to huge liabilities. I think you are confusing malpractice with accident: in case of medical accidents nobody is at fault, so nobody is liable. In case of malpractice somebody it's at fault, usually due to some form of negligence. This leads to liability and could easily even lead to criminal charges.

You didn't even read to the end of the summary, it seems. The problem is they are not suing over the mistake made by the clinic, but that the child has the wrong genes. Suing the clinic over medical malpractice is fine, but the couple has sued for a completely different formulation of the problem.

You keep talking about "right" and "wrong" genes as if it was a flawed designer baby that didn't match the contract specifications. If you make a child, you pay child support. If it's not your child, you don't pay child support. If it doesn't have dad's genes, biologically it isn't his which leaves half of the child's expenses unpaid. If the accidental donor can't be held economically responsible, the clinic should. If a man can have a one night stand and pay for it the next 18 years, I don't see why they can't have one lab accident and pay for it the next 18 years.

I think the clinic is lucky to only pay 30%, I'd say the cuckolded father has every right to disavow this child and for the mother to demand the clinic pays half in the absentee father's place. The man in this couple has essentially agreed to become the adoptive dad of someone else's child and pay 20% of the expenses himself, I think that's overly generous. In fact I bet in the US they'd both sue the hospital for many millions of dollars over the emotional trauma of discovering "their" child isn't their child.

problem is they are not suing over the mistake made by the clinic, but that the child has the wrong genes.

That is a Red herring. The child has the wrong genes BECAUSE the clinic made a mistake, The child having the wrong genes is a RESULT of their medical malpractice, therefore, the clinic has committed damages in the amount of the costs of correcting the result to be what the parents' paid for. Not only did the parents Not get what they paid for, when the parents go to correct by going through the

It has been a while, but I am pretty sure Singapore citizens cannot have an abortion in their own country, although foreigners can. So, if you are forced to have and raise a child (that will have the social stigma in Singapore of being Indian/Chinese), the impact is longer term than just a percentage of the fees paid for in-vitro fertilization... hence it not being considered malpractice.

a senior research scholar with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University, told Gizmodo.

"Senior Research Scholar" is a title that tells us nothing of the person's qualifications to make the comment. You can just be the oldest student that helped to an internet search and get that title. I'm sure he's not speaking in any professional, and likely not even a thoughtful capacity when he chooses words like "fukced up directions",

... It's suggesting that people didn't receive what they paid for, and should receive recompense on that basis....
That is the gist of this.

.
If I go to a car dealer and buy a car, and the dealer subsequently delivers a different car to me, the dealer failed in his side of the transaction.

imo, it depends upon what the transaction papers say. Do they say the clinic should deliver the sperm for a "generic child" or sperm with a specific DNA. If the clinic did not abide by the agreement, then everything else is a moot point.

Capitalism is based on the idea that both sides agree to exchange what is promised, not merely something someone else thinks is close enough.

You can't offer to sell "Lamborghini" and deliver a kit car with a Lamborghini shell and a 1985 K car motor under the hood.

If they do not want to be legally held responsible for what the services they do, then the answer is simple - do it for free, with disclaimers about not promissing anything.

Because the second they charge money for their services, they become legally responsible to actually fulfilling what they offer, rather than the mistake. And yes, the penalties correspond to the costs and pain incurred, rather than merely being limited to the amount they charged.

You've confused "capitalism" and "free market system", but as the AC pointed out, neither of those is a prerequisite for being responsible for the damages you cause to others. If you drive over a stranger who was walking down the sidewalk, you're liable for his injuries even without any agreement between you and him.

Capitalism is based on the idea that both sides agree to exchange what is promised, not merely something someone else thinks is close enough.

In reality though capitalism is based on the exchange of something which one side can persuade a court is good enough...which is one of the big problems with capitalism because typically one side can afford far more lawyers than the other. In this case what they provided was so far from what they promised that even an army of lawyers could not win the argument that it was good enough but note that they only got 30%, not 50%, of child care and there was zero compensation for the emotional damage to the fami

Nope. In most cases, it's illegal to waive parental rights. Doing so increases the burden on the State, so the State generally prohibits it. After a step-parent adoption a "third wheel" parent can waive parental rights, but in many places, that's the only way it can happen.

In most jurisdictions a request of voluntary termination of parental rights needs to be evaluated and accepted by a court, which often denies such requests unless there is "good cause" (typically to allow adoption). Without good cause the request is denied no matter what the parents want or agree, since it would free one of them of his obligations to support the child, which is not in the child's best interest, which is the absolute priority.

One of the great mysteries in my family is how I was born (second child) as a ten-pound bowling ball (doctor told my moms she had twins) to two very skinny people. Of course, I had to look like the poster child mongolism and promptly got diagnosed as mentally retarded by the school system. My father stopped drinking, my mother started drinking.

My mother didn't start having affairs with other men until after I was born. Mongolism was the proper term back in the 1970's. Which I didn't have but I did have an undiagnosed hearing loss in one that would account for speech impediment. My father was my biological father.

My mother didn't start having affairs with other men until after I was born.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but how would you know? Shit, my father-in-law is in his early sixties and just found out that his "dad" wasn't his genetic father. Even if they agreed upon an open relationship at some point after your birth, that doesn't mean she wasn't doing it before that. People who cheat tend not to make a point of telling their SO/spouse when they do so.

When my late father passed away, I sat down at his desk to sort through his paperwork and discovered that it was organized the same way as I organized my desk. We have never discussed how to organize our desks.That made settling his estate quite easy. The older I get the more I become my father.

I was never diagnosed with autism. Everyone just assumed I had autism by my appearance. Never mind that I routinely scored the annual evaluations on the genius side ("statistical flukes"), had a college-level reading comprehension after eight years in Special Ed classes (school officials couldn't call that a "statistical fluke"), and skipped high school to go to community college.

Did you write the hosts file software before or after you were diagnosed as a retard?

Wait, why didn't they do any genetic testing of the zygote *before* implanting? In vitro means the egg was fertilized outside of the womb. They didn't doe the due diligence to check that they'd gotten it right?

This is, of course, a completely different question than the ethics of suing the clinic for the child having the "wrong genes," which sounds like some bullshit.

IVF clinics generally extract a few cells from an embryo for testing and sequencing prior to implantation. It's actually easier to do genetic testing in IVF than a normal pregnancy, but genetic testing at an early stage is now standard in the US for pregnancies in women over 35.

In the same way that suing a bank for giving someone the wrong safety deposit box means that next time customers can pay for better safety deposit boxes. The logic you suggest doesn't follow from the evidence.

Non sequitur. In both of your cases, the clinic makes the mistake. The moment a clinic attempts to sue parents who get a "better" kid (your words), the parents would sue the living shit out of them for their mistake and win in court.

This Todd Kuiken is an idiot. What it implies is that this kid is like any other, the responsibility of his parents. And the unique nature of this screwup meant that he was not strictly the responsibility of the couple, at the same time the original donor should not be held responsible for what was done with his sperm without his consent. So the one responsible was ordered to share part of the responsibility for this child, they are just lucky that the court ordered the responsibility be split three ways, and not half for using the wrong sperm, or if they got really vindictive, it would not have been completely unreasonable to have ordered them to pay all of the expenses for this unwanted child.

Imagine if they got the wrong sperm AND egg; which is entirely possible since it was in-vitro. Using this theory, the clinic could be held 100% financially responsible for the child until age 18!

I won't discuss whether this is right or wrong. But let's assume the clinic is a business. When you run a business, you want to get paid for your cost, plus some profit, and if there is a risk that you make mistakes, you add the probability of a mistake times the cost of a mistake. if there's a one in thousand chance of a million dollar mistake, then the cost goes up by $1,000. If people don't want to pay the $1,000, then they can't get the goods.

I did some research and you're right. If you combine the 1st law of thermodynamics, Newton's 2nd law of motion and the unique factorization theorem it works out that it's physically impossible to make either the actual father or the incompetent doctor pay.